Sporting failed to sign Nottingham Forest’s Jota Silva at the end of the window, after pursuing him throughout the summer. Two days ago, we covered claims from Portugal explaining what happened in this case, with it missing the cut-off by minutes.
Record reported Sporting and Nottingham Forest reached an agreement for a €4.5m loan plus a €15.5m purchase option, at 11:45pm local time. They submitted the paperwork via FIFA’s Transfer Matching System.
The Lions reportedly updated TMS on time, but the operation wasn’t processed by the Portuguese FA before the deadline.
On Wednesday, Sporting president Frederico Varandas talked to the media about his club’s transfer business and their failure to sign the 26-year-old. Record have relayed his comments.
The Lions official said Botafogo offered €19m to the Premier League club, Jota Silva rejected that move.
“He was a player identified by our coach with the intention of adding depth to the squad, and this request was valued by Sporting’s structure. We decided that Jota was one of the targets of this transfer market, and this obviously required a certain financial effort. Jota was non-negotiable practically the entire market, as they were asking for around €15m, to which we, the board and the coach, said no,” he said.
“Nottingham Forest received an offer from Botafogo of €19m for Jota. We informed our coach that he had always been aware of the process and that there was nothing to be done.
“Then it turned out that Jota rejected this offer, and around midnight, around 11, 11:20, on the last day, he finally accepted a loan more or less along our lines, but not within our range.
“Sporting gave in, we’re talking of something of 3 or 4 minutes that there was no time, and we accepted a loan proposal of €4.5m, plus the salary of €2.5m, which would be €7m for the player’s loan.”
The president said the deal was agreed in matter of minutes, after the Primeira Liga winners chased Jota Silva for months.
“It’s technically impossible to receive documentation, fill out the forms, sign the contracts, scan them, and upload them to the platform in 15 minutes,” Varandas explained.
“It was technically impossible. In fact, when we received the final documentation at 11:45, the experienced people in our legal department said, ‘President, this is not going to be possible’, and I said, ‘OK, let’s try’.
“It turned out that after all these dramas, everything was done in 16 minutes, something I never imagined.
“I have to thank the legal department here because I never thought, like many people who have worked at clubs, sporting directors, documenter, that it would be possible to receive the documentation at 11:45, validate the contracts, sign them, and scan them. It was technically impossible. We tried, but we couldn’t get Jota.”
Jota Silva is still at Nottingham Forest, where he isn’t a key part of Nuno Espírito Santo’s plans.
Fenerbahçe are said to have shown interest in the attacker, and they can still sign him as the Turkish transfer window remains open until September 12th.